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Friday, December 20, 2013

Flopping down onto
the bed, she lay on her back. The ceiling
seemed to hold her thoughts and floating between herself and the ceiling lay
memories. Floating as dust mites,
wafting and waiting for recollection.

The last time she
felt this wound up, this exuberant, this on edge, she had to sleep for days
afterwards in recuperation. Older and
wiser, she understood the consequences of acting on this “feeling”. Plucking
that memory from the air she turned onto her side and smiled. Mona
Lisa couldn't give a more mischievous smile.

“Naughty!” She
heard that often while running down the hallway after chewing on the spare roll
of toilet paper her human kept hidden in the cabinet. “Naughty!” After biting the toothpaste tube
and eating that glorious minty gel, then throwing it all up in the middle of
the couch. “Naughty!” When her human’s
friend walked past and she grabbed a leg to trip them up. “Naughty!” The litter box was full so she had
to resort to using her human’s clothing which was strewn on the floor. “Naughty!” As she put her paw into her human’s drink
container to have a little taste. “Naughty!”
The dead mouse got the best reaction.

Laughing, she
licked her paw. There is much to be said
for Naughty! Naughty definitely gets attention.
But, then, again….there is “Nice.”

Nice is lying here
on the human’s bed, breathing in the wisp of dreams left behind. Insinuating her own so they might intertwine
for tonight. Nice is curled on the human’s
lap watching “Animal Planet”, when it’s
Big Cat week! Nice is being scratched in all those places she just can’t reach
herself. Nice is a shared treat from the
kitchen. Nice is sitting together on the
deck in the Spring sun.

There is much
good to be said about nice. Nice gets another
kind of attention. After all, isn't that
the real question?How will you demand
your attention?Naughty or Nice?

Thursday, December 12, 2013

Pulling
my shawl a little closer around my shoulders, I hunched against the smooth cold
earthen wall. The weather simply had not
let up in days. While we had supplies
for a week, two if we really stretched the water, we needed to get out of the
cramped safety hull. Jimmie had been
laying stretched out next to me, I picked his feet up and slid them into my lap
under my heavy shawl.

This season of dust storms started blowing during the coldest winter on record.The dust is so fine, it penetrates everything
it comes into contact with.With wind
gusts up to 70 mph, you cannot help but breath it in.Like breathing on the end of a sand blasting
hose, it tears up your lungs.

The
children have it the hardest. Some little
ones have only ever know the harsh weather patterns we now have. I am old enough to have a vague memory of
still star filled nights and hot moist afternoons laying in the grass staring
at the same cloud for what seemed like hours.

Initially,
GreatGran would tell stories of the dust bowl days of her youth. The Great Depression, the dust storms, and
hunger across the nation. She would tell
us how they found that Mother Earth needs her grasses to hold the soil. She needs the prairie dog to enrich the
soil. Once again, corporate greed
ignored the lessons learned by past generations. The wind gusts, dust pounds on the outer most
boards protecting the seals. The dust
pounds trying to take revenge on those of us who have persevered and lived this
long.

This
is a worse drought/famine than in GreatGran’s time. This time China, Russia and the United States
have ignored the needs of our planet…all three of the “great nations” have
extreme drought. There isn't going to be
a “hero” this time. Everyone is hungry.

“It
sounds like the worst of the storm is overhead now. It should be soon and we’ll be able to go
forage.” I sound far more confident that I am. “Let’s play the game. Angela, you go first.”

We
each in turn told one another of dreams we've had, whether they were night
dreams or days dreams it didn't matter.
What mattered was that we talked.
We couldn't forget to talk to one another, then we would simply become objects
to one another and risk our very humanity.

When
it came my turn I spoke of my memories; sun drenched days basking in the tall
grass at the edge of the garden as we plucked the sweet baby corn from their
stalks, still moon swept nights with the windows open watching the curtains for
that first slow whisper of a breeze, lying in bed listening to the birds soft
morning songs rousing the world from sleep.
I told many more stories that night than I had in the past few years, I
guess I was a bit nostalgic. Coughing, I dragged on. I wanted them all to know.

One
little cherub turned her face to me, “Why do you call this game the Anti-Bucket
List?”

I
smiled and touched her face. “It is my
list for life. My reason to fight
on. It is not the things I want to do
before I die…it is my celebration of why I plan to wake up in the morning. My Anti-Bucket List.”